


After Christmas

by waterloosunset123



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Amnesia, Gen, Post Regeneration, Post-Episode: 2013 Xmas The Time of the Doctor, Stream of Consciousness, The TARDIS Doesn't Like Clara, Washington D.C.
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-28
Updated: 2014-06-28
Packaged: 2018-02-06 13:02:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,367
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1859001
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/waterloosunset123/pseuds/waterloosunset123
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>His first day in his Thirteenth Body.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Crashing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 'It’s never been like this. Never forgot how to pilot her before now.'

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Doctor's POV. Stream of Consciousness. Immediately follows 'Do you happen to know how to fly this thing?'

My eyes snap open and closed. Still not used to the specific pull of the muscles. My motions are clumsy as I try to recall everything I knew about flying her… the TARDIS. We’re being thrust every which way. I know we’re crashing— can’t quite stop it, though. Pain shoots through my elbow as it hits the console. Vaguely recall regenerating with a crash some lifetimes ago. Sensation of fear deep in my chest— it’s never been like this. Never forgot how to pilot her before now. Hearts race. The flashing buttons with the undetermined functions I press brush against the pads of my fingers. Pressure’s all wrong. The beeps of the scanners even more wrong. Still hate the colour of my kidneys— mauve instead of brownish plum. (Ha! Mauve! How appropriate!) Clara would question how I know it. She questions everything. They all do. That’s why I like them.

Pull a lever. Look at the scanner. Read the words. An ancient language. Oh, Gallifrey. It helps. Visions of diamond-like silver leaves on endless forests before my eyes. Light from two suns scattering with power off the Citadel Dome. All of it still out there. Smile. Look at my hands. They look older. Functional, though. That’s all that matters. The fingernails are a millimetre and a half longer for some reason. Don’t know if I’m taller or shorter this time around. Reach for another lever. It seems to do something. Don’t know what.

Words uttered out of new mouth with new lips and a new tongue that feels too big and too small at the same time. Might  _love_ apples now. ‘I think it’s going to take a few minutes to remember it all,’ I say. Oh, new teeth. And the accent. Scotland. Prisoner Zero. Fish custard. Amelia Pond, the girl with the fairy-tale name, was seven. Impressionable child, yet she still had that accent. Incredible. The roll of the R’s. It tastes like honey. Reminds me of her round specs and ginger hair and her indomitable Roman husband. Suddenly pelted by sadness that I won’t allow to seize my tear ducts and pour out my eyes. Not again.

‘Oh, my God.’ That’s Clara, hanging on to the console for dear life. Her accent: lots of planets have a North. I focus on the words. Slight quaver marring the attempted calm beneath. She knows every me there ever was. Regeneration not a foreign concept to her. Even familiar with the one I repressed with fury for so long. Can’t be doubt, then, even with the way she’s looking at me like she doesn’t know me. (Well, she doesn’t. Not yet. Don’t even know if she’ll stick around. Slight pang of anxiety at the thought). Her fear, however, is far more likely.

Try for reassurance. ‘I know, I know… I’ll look in the Data Core.’ There is an outward rush of air from her lips. Relief. Except I don’t know how the Data Core works anymore.

Fingers type into the keyboard. Largest and clumsiest fingers I’ve ever had, I feel certain. Focus on the monitor. The Gallifreyan is soothing. Speaks straight to my soul .

_DATA CORE_ , the machine finally says. I follow instructions, that’s all. It brings me to current coordinates. We’re in the Vortex. But at any time we could get spit out like phlegm with all speed onto the nearest black hole. Search to punch in new coordinates. Error. Error. Error?! Not possible.

Telepathic communication with the TARDIS. Beg for help. Thrice. _Thief._ That’s all she says. _Hello_. She’s calling. Reminding me. I can’t connect. Not yet. She tries in vain. Something’s wrong with me. Like something smothering my thoughts. A cloud, a fog, whatever. Thick and grey and different from any other time. New regeneration cycle. Gallifrey. Time Lords. Still alive! Me, still crashing.

Panic. Scream. ‘I don’t know what to do!’ Scottish accent even more pronounced with increased volume of my own voice.

Clara. Starts walking towards me. ‘Doctor.’ Confidence. ‘Look at me.’ Command. No doubts as to why she’s here. I raise my gaze.

Her deep brown eyes meet mine. Don’t know what colour my eyes are, yet. Breathing slows.

She speaks. ‘Tell me about any of the planets you’ve been to.’

She’s insane. Any person who would ask that. Timing’s wrong. Obviously.

Have unnatural impulse to obey, nonetheless. Why? Don’t know. Only know friends help. Reminder of all the times they’ve helped. Would have died of radiation poisoning if not for Ian, Barbara and Susan. Would have suffered undetermined fate if not for Nyssa and Tegan caring after my newly-regenerated body. Would have never again wanted to live if not for Rose.

A few words about Florana spill out of my mouth. Sarah. Smile again. Cradled by incredible warmth of the memory. Breathing slows to normal.

Clara smiles, too. More sunshine.

Fog clears a bit.

There you go,’ she says. Calm. Steady. ‘Relax, and you’ll remember.’ Reaches a warm hand to my shoulder. Contact’s good. She pulls me back to myself a bit more.

Go back to the Data Core. Read. Handle coordinate program slightly better. Fingers shrink somehow. Pull lever. Lowers speed of flight some. TARDIS no longer thrashing. My eyelids feel heavy. I’m not far from being two thousand years old. Need to sleep. Press some buttons.

‘You okay?’

Don’t know how to answer. Temporary incapability for motion. Will crash myself any minute now. Still standing. Look at my lead feet. Boots. Don’t know if I like them anymore. Keep going through the Data Core.

‘London, 2014, isn’t that right?’ Heavy body, but the words come out clear.

'Yes,’ she answers.

Breathe in and out. Air is warm. Eyelids shut for a split second. Blur of greys and coloured lights in front of my eyes. Tumble backwards a bit. She catches me.

‘Doctor.’ Eyes focus again. Fingers to keys again. Press a few buttons.

Pull of muscles in legs. Console farther away. All strength gone from limbs. 

Her arm on my back. Now looking straight at the monitor again. Look at her. More than worthy. Smile.

See ground come up towards my head.  Eyelids shut. All-pervading darkness.


	2. How Very Nice of Her

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After they land, the TARDIS locks Clara out. How very nice of her.

The steps down the ramp were even more unsettling than she’d anticipated. They echoed. Her stomach churned. Even with him in deep sleep in his room (she’d had to drag him there), there was no way to know how long he’d be unconscious (or, even, if he’d _ever_ regain consciousness, thought the darkest fragment of her mind). But she needed to know where she was. Needed to know they were somewhere safe. Her Majesty of Time and Space wasn’t helping with a picture on the monitor. How very nice of her.

She grabbed the door and opened it. A wall in front of her. A dead end, somewhere. A parking spot in between buildings.  _So_ Doctor. Oxygen atmosphere? She walked out to test it. Yes, indeed, it was oxygen. She left one of the doors wide open, lest she’d be spitefully locked out by a certain sentient Time Machine (The Doctor  _still_ hadn’t given her a key), and walked around the Police Box. The dead end had been in front. She almost laughed to realise how good they’d had it, for such a rough landing. The air was hot and humid. She got out, looking at a couple of white houses on either side.

Suddenly, what she feared would happen, came to pass. The roar of the engines left her trying to reach the door in a desperate sprint, but she failed to be there in time. There was a click of the door and it dematerialised. Was that The Doctor?  _He wouldn’t_ , she thought. And she instantly hated herself for leaving him. He was unstable, still. Oh, some friend, she was.  Now that bloody machine was taking him God-knows-where,  _during_ his post-regenerative recovery.

She called the TARDIS phone to no avail. Three, four, five times. No answer. The Doctor was still not up, she knew. Not much else she could do, except try to look for him somewhere else in the city. She had a few pounds in her jumper, and that was it. If he didn’t come back… She didn’t want to think about that.

She turned the corner. The area screamed  _Important City_ at the very least, and  _World Capital_ at the most. The houses were all close together, huddled to make room in a growing metropolis, and there was a lot of traffic at the intersection ahead.

As she walked along, she was approached by a man giving out a restaurant menu. To judge by his accent, she was in America, though where, she couldn’t possibly know.  _Sushi_ _Taro,_ the menu said. The address of the restaurant was on the bottom. She’d always wanted to go to Washington, D.C. The circumstances were far from ideal, though.

She asked the man what their current location was.

‘Seventeenth and P Street, honey,’ he said. ‘Restaurant is just over there.’ His finger pointed out the sign for it. He was wearing aviator shades and very eighties clothing. The cars on the street looked more modern than that, though. Odd bloke, him.

Thanking him, she turned around. Maybe if she was left with any money at all, she’d consider having some sushi. And a cuppa.

Next order of business was finding out what day it was. There were newspapers sold at the Subway Station— Metro Station – she reached after some time walking. She looked through the glass of the dispenser of the  _USA Today_ . 29 June, 2011. Wrong continent  _and_ wrong date. Still a miracle they weren’t dead.

After a long walk through the city, that included a thorough search through the National Mall, she went back. The TARDIS was still gone. She thought about going to the Police, except  _that_ never worked.

She wandered around helplessly, panicking more with every passing minute. In case that  _had_ been The Doctor piloting the TARDIS, which she doubted, the list of places both interesting to him and accessible to her dwindled fast, having rejected a visit to the White House, the Capitol, and the deepest archives of the Library of Congress. She walked for about two hours more, only succeeding in getting sunburnt and exhausted. She also feared she would get lost, if not for the fact that she’d been quick to get a map in a shop, persuading the shopkeeper to take a fiver for it. Might as well visit the museums, go back later, to see if he showed up. He wouldn’t suddenly happen to decide to take up that curator thing he was babbling about the other day, would he?

At the Natural History Museum, she heard the impossible engines.

She looked all around, almost going through every exhibit again, but couldn’t place the TARDIS. For a few seconds, she gazed up at the T-Rex skeleton, wondering what she was going to do next. Then she saw him. Wearing stylish black shoes, blue-grey trousers, and a deep navy coat with red lining over dark blue vest and white shirt, he was standing there, just a few feet in front of her. She couldn’t help to be a bit saddened: she’d almost expected to see a bowtie. She remained undetected whilst coming to his side, so she tapped his shoulder.

‘Clara!’ he exclaimed. ‘There you are!’

‘Where did you go?’ she countered, a bit baffled by the slight panic in her voice.

‘That’s what I’m asking  _you_ ! Do you know how long it took me to look for you inside the TARDIS when I woke up?’ It was impossible not to notice how this new Doctor sounded increasingly more Scottish and… parental the more aggravated he was.

And she had to laugh at that and at their  _completely-normal-for-them_ situation. He reacted as if he didn’t see the joke. She wasn’t about to give it away. Then he smiled, catching up with her train of thought.

‘I’m sorry,’ she answered, softly, earnestly. ‘I just went out to see where we’d landed, and she locked me out and disappeared.’

It was  _his_ turn to laugh now. ‘Hey!’ she said, affronted. ‘That’s not funny.’

'It is, a bit.’ She slapped him playfully on the arm. ‘Okay, I’ll have a word with her.’ Somehow that didn’t satisfy her.

‘Where did you go?’ she asked, a few moments having passed. She couldn’t keep the worry out of her voice. ‘I mean, where’d she take you?’

Now she noticed the gentleness of his speaking voice. ‘I needed to recover. New regeneration cycle and everything, you know. There’s this place, this complex star cloud, that amplifies the properties of the Zero room of the TARDIS. She flew right to it.’ That made her feel a lot better, even if she didn’t understand why completely.

‘Wait a minute,’ he said, suddenly hit by a realisation. ‘How did you know I’d be here, anyway?’

‘I didn’t,’ she confessed. ‘But I sort of hoped you’d still love science, if and when you decided to come back.’

‘That’s my girl,’ he praised, smiling. She recognised him,  _every_ him, when he did so—it made her smile back. They walked along to the Museum exit.

‘Doctor,’ she prompted. His eyes were now bright blue, instead of green. Showed his age still. Soft and intense at the same time. ‘How are you feeling now?’

‘All better,’ he answered. ‘I’ve definitely been worse off. I’m just surprised we haven’t run into trouble!’

‘Me, too, actually. Shouldn’t the world be ending right about now?’

‘Yes. I should say so.’ He laughed. ‘Still, let’s not grow impatient. The day’s young.’ There was something still of the little boy in him, in his voice, when the idea of danger crossed his mind, even if it wasn’t displayed outwardly through his body language with the same effervescence as before.

‘Maybe for you, mate,’ she joked. ‘The walking I’ve done today!’ He smirked and she looped her arm through his as they walked.

‘Are you hungry?’ he asked.

‘Starving.’

‘Come on, then. I know a great place.’

‘Really?’

‘Yes,’ he answered. ‘I’m sure Mr Obama won’t mind.’

‘What?!’

‘Long story,’ he said, smugly. _Same old Doctor_ , she thought, shaking her head.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Classic DW References: 'The Daleks,' 'Castrovalva,' and 'Invasion of the Dinosaurs.' Three excellent stories, if you want to check them out.   
> Thank you for reading!


End file.
